[Ender SS] - Pretty Boy

Artwork by Jin Han

Pretty Boy

The Story of Bonzo Madrid

by Orson Scott Card

How do you systematically destroy a child with

love? It’s not something that any parent aspires

to do, yet a surprising number come perilously

close to achieving it. Many a child escapes de-

struction only through his own disbelief in his

parents’ worship. If I am a god, these children

say, then there are no gods, or such gods as

there be are weak and feeble things.

In short, it is their own depressive personalities

that save them. They are self-atheists.

You know you have begun badly when you

parents name you Bonito -- “Pretty Boy.”

Well, perhaps they named you after a species of

tuna. But when you are pampered and coddled

and adored, you soon become quite sure that

the tuna was named after you, and not the other

way around.

In the cathedral in Toledo, he was baptized with

the name Tomas Benedito Bonito de Madrid y

Valencia.

“An alliance between two cities!” his father

proclaimed, though everyone knew that to have

two cities in your name was a sign of low, not

high, pedigree. Only if his ancestors had been

lords of those cities would the names have

meant anything except that somebody’s ances-

tors were a butcher from Madrid and an orange

picker from Valencia who moved somewhere

else and came to be known by their city of

origin.

But in truth Bonito’s father, Amaro, did not

care for his ancestry, or at least not his specific

ancestry. It was enough for him to claim Spain

as his family.

“We are a people who were once conquered by

Islam, and yet we would not stay conquered,”

he would say -- often.

“Look at other lands

that were once more

civilized than we.

Egypt! Asia Minor!

Syria! Phoenicia! The

Arabs came with their

big black rock god

that they pretended

was not idolatry, and

what happened? The

Egyptians became

so Muslim that they

called themselves Arab and forgot their own

language. So did the Syrians! So did the Leba-

nese! So did ancient Carthage and Lydia and

Phrygia, Pontus and Macedonia! They gave up.

They converted.” He always said that word as if

it were a mouthful of mud.

“But Spain -- we retreated up into the Pyrenees.

Navarre, Aragon, Leon, Galicia. They could

not get us out of the hills. And slowly, year by

year, city by city, village by village, orchard by

orchard, we won it back. 1492. We drove the

last of the Moors out of Spain, we purified the

Spanish civilization, and then we went out and

conquered a world!”

To goad him, friends would remind him that

Columbus was Italian. “Yes, but he had to come

to Spain before he accomplished a damn thing!

It was Spanish money and Spanish bottoms that

floated him west, and we all know it was really

Spanish sailors who did the navigation and dis-

covered the new world. It was Spaniards who in

their dozens conquered armies that numbered in

the millions!”

“So,” the daring ones would say, “so what hap-

pened? Why did Spain topple from its place?”

“Spain never toppled. Spain had the tragic

misfortune to get captured by foreign kings. A

pawn of the miserable Hapsburgs. Austrians!

Germans. They spent the blood and treasure

of Spain on what? Dynastic wars! Squabbles

in the Netherlands. What a waste! We should

have been conquering China. China would

have been better off speaking Spanish like Peru

and Mexico. They’d have an alphabet! They’d

eat with forks! They’d pray to the god on the

cross!”

“But you don’t pray to the god on the cross.”

“Si, pero yo lo respecto! Yo lo adoro! Es muer-

to, pero es verdaderamente mi redentor ainda

lo mismo!” I respect him, I worship him. He’s

dead, but he’s truly my redeemer all the same.

Don’t ever get Amaro de Madrid started on

religion. “The people must have their god, or

they’ll make gods of whatever you give them.

Look at the environmentalists, serving the god

Gaia, sacrificing the prosperity of the world

on her altar of compost! Cristo is a good god,

he makes people peaceful with each other but

fierce with their enemies.”

No point in arguing when Amaro had a case to

make. For he was a lawyer. No, he was a poet

who was licensed and paid as a lawyer. His per-

orations in court were legendary. People would

come to boring court actions, just to hear him

-- not a lot of people, but most of them other

lawyers or idealistic citizens or women held

spellbound by his fire and the flood of words

that sounded like wisdom and sometimes were.

Enough that he was something of a celebrity in

Toledo. Enough that his house was always full

of people wanting to engage him in conversa-

tion.

This was the father at whose knee the pam-

pered Bonito would sit, listening wide-eyed as

pilgrims came to this living shrine to the lost

religion of Spanish patriotism. Only gradually

did Bonito come to realize that his father was

not just its prophet, but its sole communicant

as well.

Except, of course, Bonito. He was a remarkably

bright child, verbal before he was a year old,

and Amaro swore that his son understood every

word he said before he was eighteen months

old.

Not every word, but close enough. Word

spread, as it always did, about this infant who

listened to his brilliant father and was not

merely dazzled, but seemed to understand.

So before Bonito was two years old, they came

from the International Fleet to begin their tests.

“You would steal my son from me? More im-

portantly, you would steal him from Spain?”

The young officer patiently explained to him

that Spain was, in fact, part of the human

race, and the whole human race was searching

among its children to find the most brilliant

military minds to lead the struggle for survival

against the formics, that hideous race that

had come two generations before and scoured

humans out of the way like mildew until great

heroes destroyed them. “It was a near thing,”

said the officer. “What if your son is the next

Mazer Rackham, only you withhold him. Do

you think the formics will stop at the border of

Spain?”

“We will do as we did before,” said Amaro.

“We will hide in our mountain fortresses and

then come back to reclaim Earth, city by city,

village by village, until --”

But this young officer had studied history and

only smiled. “The Moors captured the villages

of Spain and ruled over them. The formics

would obliterate them; what then will you re-

capture? Christians remained in Spain for your

ancestors to liberate. Will you convert formics

to rebel against their hive queen and join your

struggle? You might as well try to persuade a

man’s hands to rebel against his brain.”

To which Amaro only laughed and said, “I

know many a man whose hands rebelled

against him -- and other parts as well!”

Amaro was a lawyer. More to the point, he was

not stupid. So he knew the futility of trying

to resist the I.F. Nor was he insensitive to the

great honor of having a son that the I.F. wanted

to take away from him. In fact, when he railed

to everyone about the tyranny of these “child-

stealing internationalists,” it was really his way

of boasting that he had spawned a possible

savior of the world. The tiny blinking monitor

implanted in his son’s spine just below the skull

was a badge for his father.

Then Amaro set about destroying his son with

love.

Nothing was to be denied this boy that the

world wanted to take away from Amaro. He

went with his father everywhere -- as soon as

he could walk and use a toilet, so there was no

burden or mess to deal with. And when Amaro

was at home, young Bonito was indulged in all

his whims. “The boy wants to play in the trees,

so let him.”

“But he’s so little, and he climbs so high, the

fall would be so far.”

“Boys climb, they fall. Do you think my Bonito

is not tough enough to deal with it? How else

will he learn?”

When Bonito refused to go to bed, or to turn

his light out when he finally did, because he

wanted to read, then Amaro said, “Will you

stifle genius? If nighttime is when his mind is

active, then you no more curtail him than you

would demand that an owl can only hunt in the

day!”

And when Bonito demanded sweets, well,

Amaro made sure that there was an endless

supply of them in the house. “He’ll get tired of

them,” said Amaro.

But these things did not always lead where one

might have thought, for Bonito, without know-

ing it, was determined to rescue himself from

his father’s love. Listening to his father and

understanding more than even Amaro guessed,

Bonito realized that getting tired of sweets was

what his father expected -- so he no longer

asked for them. The boxes of candy languished

and were finally contributed to a local orphan-

age.

Likewise, Bonito deliberately fell from trees

-- low branches at first, then higher and higher

ones, learning to overcome his fear of falling

and to avoid injury. And he began to understand

that he was not nocturnal afterward, that what

he read in the daze of sleepiness was ill-remem-

bered by morning, but what he read by daylight

after a good night of sleep stayed with him.

For Bonito was, in fact, born to be a disciple,

and if his mentor imposed no discipline on him,

Bonito would find it in his teachings all the

same. Bonito heard everything, even that which

was not actually said.

When Bonito was five, he finally became aware

of his mother.

Oh, he had known her all along. He had run to

her with his scrapes and his hungers. Her hands

had been on him, caressing him, her soft voice

also a caress, all the days of his life. She was

like the air he breathed. Father was the dazzling

sun in the bright blue sky; Mother was the earth

beneath his feet. Everything came from her, but

he did not see her, he was so dazzled.

Until one day, Bonito’s attention wandered

from one of his father’s familiar sermons to

one of the visitors who had come to hear him.

Mother had brought in a tray of simple food

-- cut-up fruits and raw vegetables. But she had

included a plate of the sweet orange flatbread

she sometimes made, and it happened that

Bonito noticed the moment when the visitor

picked up one of the crackers and broke off a

piece and put it in his mouth.

The visitor had been nodding at the things that

Father was saying. But he stopped. Stopped

chewing, as well. For a moment, Bonito

thought the man intended to take the bite of

flatbread out of his mouth. But no, he was

savoring it. His eyebrows rose. He looked at

the flatbread that remained in his hand, and

there was reverence in his attitude when he put

another piece in his mouth.

Bonito watched the man’s face. Ecstasy? No,

perhaps mere delight.

And when the man left, he stepped apart from

the circle of admirers around his father and

went to the kitchen.

Bonito followed him, leaving his father’s con-

versation behind in order to hear this one:

“Señora, may I take more of this flatbread with

me?”

Mother blushed and smiled shyly. “Did you like

it?”

“I will not insult you by asking for the recipe,”

the man said. “I know that no description can

capture what you put into this bread. But I beg

you to let me carry some away so I can eat it in

my own garden and share it with my wife.”

With a sweet eagerness, Mother wrapped up

most of what remained and gave it to the man,

who bowed over the paper bag as she handed

it to him. “You,” the man said, “are the secret

treasure of this house.”

At those words, Mother’s shyness became

cold. Bonito realized at once that the man had

crossed some invisible line; the man realized

it as well. “Señora, I am not flirting with you.

I spoke from the heart. What your husband

says, I could read, or hear from others. What

you have made here, I can have only from your

hand.” Then he bowed again, and left

Bonito knew the orange flatbread was delicious.

What he had not realized till now was that it

was unusually so. That strangers would value it.

Mother began to sing a little song in the kitchen

after the man left the room.

Bonito went back out into the salon to see how

the man merely waved a brief good-bye to Fa-

ther, and then rushed away clutching his prize,

the bag of flatbread.

A tiny part of Bonito was jealous. That flatbread

would have been his to eat all through the next

day.

But another part of Bonito was proud. Proud

of his mother. It had never happened before.

It was Father one was supposed to be proud

of. He understood that instinctively, and it had

been reinforced by so many visitors who had

turned to him while waiting for their chance to

say good-bye to Father, and said something like

this: “You’re so lucky to live in the house of

this great man.” Or, more obliquely, “You live

here in the heartbeat of Spain.” But always, it

was about Father.

Not this time.

From that moment, Bonito began to be aware

of his mother. He actually noticed the work she

did to make Father’s life happen. The way she

dealt with all the tradesmen, the gardener and

the maid who also helped her in the kitchen.

How she shopped in the market, how she talked

with the neighbors, graciously making their

house a part of the neighborhood. The world

came to their house to see Father; Mother went

out and blessed the neighborhood with kindness

and concern. Father talked. Mother listened.

Father was admired. Mother was loved and

trusted and needed.

It took a while for Father to notice that Bonito

was not always with him anymore, that he

sometimes did not want to go. “Of course,” he

said, laughing. “Court must be boring for you!”

But he was a little disappointed; Bonito saw it;

he was sorry for it. But he got as much pleasure

from going about with his mother, for now he

saw what an artist she was in her own right.

Father spoke to rooms of people -- let them take

him how they would, he amused, delighted,

roused, even enraged them. Mother spoke with

one person at a time, and when she left, they

were, however temporarily, content.

“What did you do today?” Father asked him.

Bonito made the mistake of answering can-

didly. “I went to market with Mama,” he said.

“We visited with Mrs. Ferreira, the Portuguese

lady? Her daughter has been making her very

unhappy but Mother told her all the ways that

the girl was showing good sense after all. Then

we came home and Mother and Nita made the

noodles for our soup, and I helped with the

dusting of flour because I’m very good and I

don’t get tired of sifting it. Then I sang songs to

her while she did the bills. I have a very sweet

voice, Papa.”

“I know you do,” he said. But he looked

puzzled. “Today I argued a very important case.

I won a poor family back the land that had been

unjustly taken by a bank because they would

not have the patience with the poor that they

showed to the wealthy. I made six rich men tes-

tify about the favors they had received from the

bank, the overdrafts, the late payments that had

been tolerated, and it did not even go to judg-

ment, the bankers backed down and restored the

land and forgave the back interest.”

“Congratulations, Papa.”

“But Bonito, you did not go to see this. You

stayed home and went shopping and gossiping

and sifting flour and singing songs with your

mother.”

Bonito did not grasp his point. Until he realized

that Father did not grasp his own point, either.

He was envious. It was that simple. Father was

jealous that Bonito had chosen to spend his day

with his mother.

“I’ll go with you tomorrow, Father.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday, and the great case was

today. It was today, and you missed it.”

Bonito felt that he had let his father down. It

devastated him. Yet he had been so happy all

day with Mama. He cried. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’ll

never do it again.”

“No, no, you spend your days as you want.”

Father picked him up and held him. “I never

meant to make you cry, my Bonito, my pretty

boy. Will you forgive your papa?”

Of course he did. But Bonito did not stay home

with Mother after that, not for a long while.

He was devotedly with his father, and Amaro

seemed happier and prouder than ever be-

fore. Mother never said anything about it, not

directly. Only one day did she say, “I paid bills

today, and I thought I heard you singing to me,

and it made me so happy, my pretty boy.” She

smiled and caressed him, but she was not hurt,

only wistful and loving, and Bonito knew that

Father needed to have him close at hand more

than Mother did.

Now Bonito understood his own power in the

house. His attention was the prize. Where he

bestowed it mattered far too much to Father,

and only a little less to Mother.

But it worked the other way as well; it hurt

Bonito’s feelings a little that Mother could do

without him better than Father could.

A family filled with love, Bonito knew, and yet

they still managed to hurt each other in little

ways, unthinking ways.

Only I do think about it, Bonito realized. I see

what neither of my parents sees.

It frightened him. It exhilarated him. I am the

true ruler of this house. I am the only one who

understands it.

He could not say this to anyone else. But he

wrote it down. Then he tore up the paper and

hid it at the bottom of the kitchen garbage, un-

der the orange rinds and meat scraps that would

go out into the compost pile.

He forgot, for that moment, that he was not

actually alone. For he wore on the back of his

neck the monitor of the International Fleet. A

tiny transmitter that marked a child as one of

the chosen ones, being observed and evaluated.

The monitor connected to his neural centers.

The people from Battle School saw through his

eyes, heard through his ears. They read what he

wrote.

Soon after Bonito wrote his observation and

tore it up, the young officer returned. “I need to

speak to young Bonito. Alone.”

Father made a bit of a fuss but then went off to

work without his son. Mother busied herself in

the kitchen; she was perhaps a bit noisier than

usual with the pots and pans and knives and

other implements, but the sound was a comfort

to Bonito as he faced this man that he did not

well remember having seen before.

“Bonito,” said the officer softly. “You wrote

something down yesterday.”

Bonito was at once ashamed. “I forgot that you

could see.”

“We thought it was important that you know

two things. First, you’re right. You are the true

ruler of the house. But second, you are an only

child, so you had no way of knowing that in

any healthy family, the children are the true

rulers.”

“Fathers rule,” said Bonito, “and mothers are in

charge when they’re not home.”

“That describes the outward functioning of your

home,” said the young officer. “But you under-

stand that all they do is meant for you -- even

your father’s vast ambition is about achieving

greatness in his son’s eyes. He doesn’t know

this about himself. But you know it about him.”

Bonito nodded.

“Children rule in every home, but not in the

ways they might wish. Good parents try to help

their children, but not always to please them,

because sometimes what a child needs is not

what gives him pleasure. Cruel parents are jeal-

ous of their children’s power and rebel against

it, using them selfishly, hurting them. Your

parents are not cruel.”

“I know that.” Was the man stupid?

“Then I’ve told you everything I came to say.”

“Not yet,” said Bonito.

“Oh?”

“Why is it that way?”

The young officer looked pleased. Bonito

thought: Do I also rule him?

“The human race preserved itself,” said the

young officer, “by evolving this hunger in par-

ents for the devotion of their children. Without

it, they starve. Nothing pleases them more

than their child’s smile or laughter. Nothing

makes them more anxious than a child’s frantic

cry. Childless people often do not know what

they’re starving for. Parents whose children

have grown, though, they know what they’re

missing.”

Bonito nodded. “When you take me away to

Battle School, my parents will be very hungry.”

“If we take you,” the young officer said gently.

Bonito smiled. “You must leave me here,” he

said. “My family needs me.”

“You may rule in this house, Bonito, but you

do not rule the International Fleet. Your smile

won’t tell me what to do. But when the time

comes, the choice will be yours.”

“Then I choose not to go.”

“When the time comes,” the officer repeated.

Then he left.

Bonito understood that they would be judging

him, and what he did with the information the

young officer had told him would be an im-

portant part of that judgment. In Battle School,

they trained children to become military lead-

ers. That meant that it would be important to

see what Bonito did with the influence he had

discovered that he had with his parents.

Can I help them both to be happy?

What does it mean to be happy?

Mother helps both me and Father, doing things

for us all the time. Is that what makes her

happy? Or does she do it in hopes of our doing

things in return that would make her happy?

Father loves to talk about his dreams for Spain.

Does that mean he needs to actually achieve

them in order to be happy? Or does his happi-

ness come from having a cause to argue for?

Does it matter that it’s a lost cause, or does

that make Father even happier as its advocate?

Would I please him most by adopting that cause

as my own, or would he feel like I was compet-

ing with him?

It was so confusing, to have responsibility for

other people’s happiness.

So now Bonito embarked on his first serious

course of study: His parents, and what they

wanted and needed in order to be happy.

Study meant research. He couldn’t figure things

out without learning more about them. He

began interviewing them, informally. He’d ask

them questions about their growing up, about

how they met, whatever came into his mind.

They both enjoyed answering his questions,

though they often dodged and didn’t give him

full explanations or stories. Still, the very fact

that on certain subjects they became evasive

was still data, it was still part of understanding

them.

But the more he learned, the less clearly he

understood anything. People were too compli-

cated. Adults did too many things that made

no sense, and remembered too many stories in

ways that did make sense but weren’t believ-

able, and Bonito couldn’t figure out whether

they were lying or had merely remembered

them wrong. Certainly Mother and Father

never told the same story in the same way --

Father’s version always made him the hero, and

Mother’s version always made her the suffering

victim. Which should have made the stories

identical, except that Mother never saw Father

as her savior, and Father never made Mother all

that important in the stories.

It made Bonito wonder if they really loved each

other and if not, why they ever got married.

It was disturbing and it made him upset a lot of

the time. Mother noticed that he was worried

about something and tried to get him to tell it,

but he knew better than to explain what he was

working on. He didn’t really have the words to

explain it, anyway.

It was too much responsibility for a child, he

knew that. How could he possibly make his

parents happy? He couldn’t do anything about

what they needed. The only thing he controlled

was how he treated them. So gradually, not in

despair but in resignation, he stopped trying to

make their behavior and their relationship make

sense, and he stopped expecting himself to be

able to change anything. If his failure to help

them meant the I.F. didn’t take him into space,

well, that was fine with him, he didn’t want to

go.

But he still kept noticing things. He still kept

asking questions and trying to find things out

about them.

Which is why he noticed a certain pattern in his

father’s life. On various days of the week, but

usually at least once a week, Father would go

on errands or have meetings where he didn’t

try to bring Bonito -- where, indeed, he refused

to take him. Until this research project began,

Bonito had never thought anything of it -- he

didn’t even want to be in on everything his

father did, mostly because some of his meetings

could be really boring.

But now he understood enough of his father’s

business to know that Father never hid his

regular work from Bonito. Oh, of course he met

with clients alone -- it would disturb them to

have a child listening to everything -- but those

meetings weren’t hidden. There were appoint-

ments that the secretary wrote down, and Bo-

nito sat out in the secretary’s office and wrote

or drew or read until Father was done.

These secret meeting always took place outside

the office, and outside of office hours. Some-

times they consisted of a long lunch, and the

secretary took Bonito home so Mother could

feed him. Sometimes Father would have an

evening meeting after he brought Bonito home.

Usually, Father loved to tell about whatever

he had done and especially what he had said

that made someone else angry or put him in his

place or made people laugh. But about these

secret meetings, he was never talkative. He’d

dismiss them as boring, pointless, tedious, he

hated to go.

Yet Father never seemed as though he hated to

go before the meeting. He was almost eager to

go -- not in some obvious way, but in the way

he watched the clock surreptitiously and then

made some excuse and left briskly.

For long months this was merely a nagging

uncertainty in Bonito’s mind. After all, he had

given up on trying to take responsibility for his

parents’ happiness, so there was no urgency to

figure it out. But the problem wouldn’t leave

him alone, and finally he realized why.

Father was in a conspiracy. He was meeting

with people to do something dangerous or il-

legal. Was he planning to take over the Spanish

government? Start a revolution? But whom

could he meet with in Toledo that would make

a difference in the world? Toledo was not a city

where powerful people lived -- they were all

in Madrid and Barcelona, the cities his parents

were named for but rarely visited. These meet-

ings rarely lasted more than an hour and a half

and never more than three hours, so they had to

take place fairly close by.

How could a six-year-old -- for Bonito was

six now -- find out what his father was doing?

Because now that he knew there was a mystery,

he had to have the answer to it. Maybe Father

was doing secret government work -- maybe

even for the I.F. Or maybe he was working on

a dangerous case that might get him killed if

anyone knew about it, so he only had meetings

about it in secret.

One day an opportunity came. Father checked

the time of day several times in the same morn-

ing without saying anything about it, and then

left for lunch a few minutes early, asking the

secretary to walk Bonito home for lunch. The

secretary agreed to and seemed cheerful enough

about it; but she was also very busy and clearly

did not want to leave the job unfinished.

“I can go home alone,” said Bonito. “I’m six,

you know.”

“Of course you can find the way, you smart

little boy,” she answered. “But bad things some-

times happen to children who go off alone.”

“Not to me,” said Bonito.

“Are you sure of that?” she answered, amused.

Bonito turned around and pointed to the moni-

tor on his neck. “They’re watching.”

“Oh,” said the secretary, as if she had complete-

ly forgotten that Bonito was being observed all

the time. “Well, then I guess you’re quite safe.

Still, I think it’s better if you ...”

Before she could say “wait until I’m done

here,” which was the inevitable conclusion of

her sentence, Bonito was out the door. “Don’t

worry I’ll be fine!” he shouted as he went.

He could see Father walking along the street,

briskly but not actually fast. It was good that he

was walking instead of taking a cab or getting

the car -- then Bonito could not have followed

him. This way, Bonito could saunter along

looking in store windows, like a kid, and still

keep his father in view.

Father came to a door between shops, one of

the sort that held stairs that led to walk-up

shops and offices and apartments. Bonito got

to the door and it was already closed; it was

the kind that locked until somebody upstairs

pushed a button to let it open. Father was not in

sight.

The buttons on the wall had name tags, most

of them, and a couple of them were offices

rather than apartments. But Father would not

be having a manicure and he would not be get-

ting his future read by a psychic palm-reading

astrologer.

And, come to think of it, Father had not even

waited at the bottom long enough for somebody

to ring him up. Instead he had taken a long time

getting the door handle open ...

Father had keys. That’s what happened at the

door, he fumbled with keys and opened the

door directly without ringing anybody.

Why would Father have a second office? Or a

second apartment? It made no sense to Bonito.

So when he got home, he asked Mother about

it.

She looked like he had stabbed her in the heart.

And yet she refused to explain anything.

After lunch he became aware that she had gone

to her room and was crying.

I’ve made her unhappy, he thought. I shouldn’t

have been following Father, he thought.

And then she came out of her room holding a

note, her eyes red from crying. She put the note

on the kitchen table, folded, with Father’s name

on it, and then took Bonito to the car, which she

almost never drove, and drove to the railroad

station, where she parked it and got on the train

and they went to Grandma’s house. Mother’s

mother, who lived two hours away in a small

town in the middle of nowhere, but with orange

groves -- not very productive ones, but as

Grandma always said, her needs were few and

her son-in-law was generous.

Mother sent Bonito into the back yard and

then cried to her mother. Bonito tried to listen

but when they saw him edging closer to the

window they closed it and then got up and went

to another room where he couldn’t hear them

without making it obvious he was trying to spy.

Yet he knew, bit by bit, what had happened, and

what he had done. From the scraps of words

and phrases he could overhear, he knew there

was a “she” that Father was “keeping,” that it

was a terrible thing that Father had the key, and

that Mother didn’t know how she could bear it

or whether she could stay. And Grandma kept

saying, Hush, hush, it’s the way of the world,

women suffer while the men play, you have

your son and you can’t expect a strong man not

to wander, one woman could not contain him ...

And then they saw him a second time, sitting

directly under the window where Mother had

walked to get some air. Mother was furious.

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing,” said Bonito.

“The day you don’t hear words that are said

right in front of you, I’ll take you to a hearing

doctor to stick needles in your ears. What did

you hear?”

“I’m sorry I told you about Papa! I don’t want

to move here! Grandma’s a bad cook!”

At which Mother laughed in the midst of tears,

Grandma was genuinely offended, and then

Mother promised him that they would not move

to Grandma’s, but they’d visit here for a few

days. They hadn’t packed anything, but there

were clothes left there from previous visits

-- too small for him now, but not so small he

couldn’t fit into them.

Father came that night and Grandma sent him

away. He was furious at first but then she said

something in a low voice and Father fell silent

and drove away.

The next day he was back with flowers. Bonito

watched Mother and Father talk in the door-

way, and she refused to take his flowers., so

he dropped them on the ground and left again.

Mother crushed one of the flowers with her

shoe, but then she picked up the others and

cried over them for a long time while Grand-

mother said, over and over, “I told you it meant

nothing. I told you he didn’t want to lose you.”

It took a week before they moved back home,

and Father and Mother were not right with each

other. They talked little, except about the busi-

ness of the house. And Father stopped asking

Bonito to come with him.

At first Bonito was angry at Mother, but when

he confronted her, Mother denied that she had

forbidden him to go. “He’s ashamed in front of

you,” she said.

“For what?” asked Bonito.

“He still loves you as much as ever,” said

Mother.

Which left his question unanswered. That

meant the answer was very important. Father

was ashamed of something, ashamed in front of

Bonito. Or was that Mother’s kindly-intended

lie, and Father was actually very angry at Bo-

nito for spying on him?

For days, for weeks Bonito didn’t understand.

And then one day he did. By then he was in

school, and on the playground a boy was telling

jokes, and it involved a man doing something

bad with a woman that wasn’t his wife, and in

the middle of the joke it dawned on Bonito that

this was what Father had been doing with some

other woman that wasn’t Mother. The reaction

of the boys to the joke was obvious. Men were

supposed to laugh at this. Men were supposed

to think it was funny to find a clever way to lie

to your wife and do strange things with strange

women. By the end of the joke both women

were deceived. The boys laughed as if it were

a triumph. As if there were a war between men

and women, both lying to each other.

That’s not how Mother is, thought Bonito. She

doesn’t lie to Father. When a man comes to her

and flirts with her, she sends him away. That’s

what happened with that man who liked her

flatbread.

The final piece fell into place when they were

visiting Grandma again -- briefly, this time

-- and Grandma looked at him and sighed and

said, “You’ll just grow up to be another man.”

As if hombre were a dirty word. “There’s no

honor among men.”

But I won’t grow up like Father. I won’t break

Mother’s heart.

But how could he know that? It wouldn’t be

Mother’s heart, anyway, it would be the woman

he eventually married; and how could he know

that he wasn’t just like his father?

Without honor.

It changed everything. It poisoned everything.

And when they came to him only a few day

before his seventh birthday, and took out the

monitor, and asked him if he’d like to go to

Battle School, he said yes.

____________________________________

from InterGalactic Medicine Show Issue 2